Lotus 79 Haynes Manual

23/11/16 - The next Haynes manual in the series is the car also known as Black Beauty

The 1970s were a time of real innovation in Formula 1. Without the development tools that hone technologies to the finest degree, the cars were more experimental and looked more as a designer would wish, rather than as performance dictates.

During this era, the Lotus type 79 dominated the races that it contested in 1978 and took Mario Andretti to the Drivers’ World Championship title. The team had successfully harnessed ‘ground effect’, a phenomenon that provided downforce through underfloor design rather than through over-body wings. While others were developing concepts in the same area, Team Lotus was the first team to harness it successfully.

This book charts the design and development of the Type 79, from the moment that Team Lotus realised how to make ground effect work efficiently in the wind tunnel with the Type 78, to its final young driver tests in 1979.

Classic Team Lotus was pleased to make available the Team Lotus set up sheets and the race history of the Type 79.

The book looks at the drivers that competed in the Grands Prix of the time, and details are provided for the history of each individual chassis.